Broward Schools Receive Good Marks in National Report

By Hannah Sampson, The Miami Herald

Mar. 22–A national report issued Tuesday lauded the Broward County school district for strong showings in math and reading on last year’s tests.

In its annual examination of academic progress in urban schools, the Council of the Great City Schools highlighted Broward’s fourth- and eighth-grade math scores, which were higher than the state average.

Also higher than the Florida average were eighth-grade reading scores in Broward. Fourth-grade reading was below the state average.

"We’re making progress," said Broward Schools Superintendent Frank Till, who attended the unveiling of the report in Washington, D.C. "But we’ve got a long way to go."

The Council of the Great City Schools is an organization of 66 major urban school systems with a combined enrollment of almost 7.4 million students. It includes Miami-Dade County, whose students fared less well in this year’s report.

Till said the report contained no surprises — the results have been known to the district for months — but he was happy to see Broward recognized.

"We really are focusing the system on student achievement," he said.

Michael Casserly, executive director of the council, said large urban districts have been forced to take different approaches to education.

"The cities have really been borrowing from each other, studying each other for the last couple of years in terms of what works, what doesn’t work," Casserly said.

Overall, the report showed that the percentage of fourth- and eighth-graders in urban districts who scored at or above proficiency on their state tests continued to increase last school year.

Broward, with the nation’s sixth-largest public school district, is considered urban, although it is more affluent than both the state overall and other districts included in the study.

The portion of Broward public school students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch — an indication of poverty — was just over 40 percent during the 2003-04 school year, versus 55 percent statewide. Other districts in the study averaged 64.6 percent.

In Miami-Dade, where more than 63 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, no grade showed test scores higher than the state average in either reading or math. Fifth-graders did match the state average in math.

Urban school challenges include high poverty rates and more children whose primary language is not English.

Casserly said urban districts still need to focus on reading, improving middle and high schools and narrowing racial and other achievement gaps.

"We’re not declaring victory yet," he said.

—–

Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.